Clarity Trumps Persuasion on Landing Pages

Day one at the recent MarketingSherpa Selling Online Subscriptions Summit in New York City offered some impressive takeaways. Take the “Landing Page Optimization Case Studies” session by Flint McGlaughlin, Director, MarketingExperiments. Two key takeaways:

Takeaway #1: Clarity Trumps Persuasion

McGlaughlin asserted that “reality trumps persuasion” on landing pages. He made the phrase into a type of mantra, having the audience repeat it several times.

Takeaway #2: Use Testimonials Properly

Testimonials lend credibility to your offer. They’re great at making customers feel comfortable with your order. However, they need to be used at the right time or they’re “a real waste of real estate.”

“We [marketers] use testimonials in random, haphazard, unfruitful and unproductive ways,” McGlaughlin says. Use them when customers are about to purchase, he says, that’s when they’re thinking, “Is it safe to buy from these guys.”

About Adam T. Sutton

Adam T. Sutton, Senior Reporter, MarketingSherpa
Adam generates content for MarketingSherpa's Email and Inbound Marketing newsletters. His years of experience in interviewing marketers and conveying their insights has spanned topics such as search marketing, social media marketing, ecommerce, email and more. Adam previously powered the content behind MarketingSherpa's Search and Consumer-marketing newsletters and carries that experience into his new role. Today, in addition to writing articles, he contributes content to the MarketingExperiments and MarketingSherpa blogs, as well as MECLABS webinars, workshops and summits.

Prior to joining MarketingSherpa, Adam was the Managing Editor at the Mequoda group. There he created content and promotions for the company's daily email newsletter and managed its schedule.